Apple is celebrating the tenth anniversary of Apple Pay today and it’s clear that the Cupertino-based giant is quite happy with its payment offering. I’ll be the first to admit that Apple Pay will still be useful and convenient in ten years; Usually, instead of reaching for a physical card, I simply double-tap the power button on my iPhone and pay.
In the years since the original launch, many more card partners have emerged, and more and more retailers have adopted the standard. In addition to future updates, Apple is introducing two new ways to pay with Apple Pay.
You can now check out with Apple Pay and redeem rewards from eligible cards (such as miles or points from Discover credit cards in the US) and access installment loans from Affirm in the US and Monzo Flex in the UK, and flexible payment options from Klarna in the US and UK.
Pay with rewards or two new payment options
Now available with iOS 18 for people in the United States on an iPhone or iPad. You can now select rewards like points (think cash back) or miles from eligible Discover Cards to pay all or part of it at checkout. Apple has integrated this option directly onto the checkout screen (which takes up part of the bottom of your device) and it feels quite intuitive. By default, it shows the maximum amount you can redeem, and tapping it allows you to adjust the amount.
Even neater, though, and if you solve just one piece of the puzzle worth an airline mile, you even get the conversion of what one mile equals to dollars. That’s quite handy. This experience of using card rewards at checkout in Apple Pay is just starting now with select Discover cards, but more partners will be rolled out in the future. Apple has confirmed that you can use rewards with select Synchrony, Fiserv and FIS cards in the United States and DBS in Singapore.
In addition to rewards, however, Apple is adding two new payment options, the first of which can be seen as Apple’s partner successor since the closure of Apple Pay Later. Firstly, Klarna’s flexible payment options are now available to people who check out with Apple Pay – with iPhone and iPad, online and in the app – in the US and UK. This allows you to select the service as a payment option, get approval, and choose a plan to split the payment. It’s worth noting that charges aren’t shown weekly or fortnightly (each payment option differs), and that requires you to visit the Klarna app.
Secondly, iOS 18 also brings payment options for installment loans. In the United States these are done through Affirm, while in the United Kingdom these are done through Monzo. This will get you approved for the loan, allow you to choose terms (and see what interest rates are attached), and then complete the checkout process. This is a pretty big step and a direct replacement for Apple’s own ‘Apple Pay Later’ payment plans. It will also expand to several other countries at some point in the future, including ANZ in Australia and CaixaBank in Spain.
Overall, these new ways to pay, and new partners, are reinvigorating the Apple Pay experience. It’s also important that this doesn’t change the ease of use that makes Apple Pay a great service and feature across Apple’s myriad of devices. I think the addition of rewards – for points and miles – into the Apple Pay checkout process will be very useful and allow many to make better use of points, similar to how you can checkout with points on Amazon. However, they can deflate more quickly.